http://ambival.net/movies/true-romance Just another WordPress weblog Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:33:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 http://ambival.net/movies/true-romance#comment-7175 Ambival.net » Movie Reviews » Deja Vu [2006] Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:56:47 +0000 http://ambival.net/?p=96#comment-7175 [...] There’s hints early on at the brilliant potential for this movie to address love that transcends even time itself – and that’s the only reason, ultimately, it takes a slight downturn for me when Denzel goes back in time. It kind of breaks that whole potential. Don’t get me wrong, this moment is done as brilliantly as the rest, I completely accepted it and it doesn’t come over as too bizarre a turn, not even the way some people (not me) find The Prestige stuff does … but for me, the idea of someone falling in love, even just getting close, getting a connection to a person, without ever having met them, that deserves more and those shots where it looks like the girl “feels” Denzel watching her early on are just too tantalising for the rest of the movie to live up to. And, I know, I know, it’s not that kind of movie, it’s “just” a thriller, but if you’ve seen Man on Fire, or even True Romance you’ll know Tony Scott is capable of making a thriller so much more than a thriller, and it could’ve been both. The ending pulls this feeling back big time, I for one did not see it coming at all and when I realised what was going to happen, I primed myself for tears and they came on cue. [...] [...] There’s hints early on at the brilliant potential for this movie to address love that transcends even time itself – and that’s the only reason, ultimately, it takes a slight downturn for me when Denzel goes back in time. It kind of breaks that whole potential. Don’t get me wrong, this moment is done as brilliantly as the rest, I completely accepted it and it doesn’t come over as too bizarre a turn, not even the way some people (not me) find The Prestige stuff does … but for me, the idea of someone falling in love, even just getting close, getting a connection to a person, without ever having met them, that deserves more and those shots where it looks like the girl “feels” Denzel watching her early on are just too tantalising for the rest of the movie to live up to. And, I know, I know, it’s not that kind of movie, it’s “just” a thriller, but if you’ve seen Man on Fire, or even True Romance you’ll know Tony Scott is capable of making a thriller so much more than a thriller, and it could’ve been both. The ending pulls this feeling back big time, I for one did not see it coming at all and when I realised what was going to happen, I primed myself for tears and they came on cue. [...]

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